Trudeau ‘overreacting’ to U.S. tariffs, Kudlow says
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser said Sunday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “overreacting” to new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Larry Kudlow said that the Trump administration’s confrontation with Canada is a “family quarrel” that can still be resolved through negotiations. “These tariffs may go on for a while or they may not.”
The White House invoked national security concerns last week as justification for the tariffs, which it is also imposing on Mexico and the EU. Trudeau, in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, called that reasoning “quite frankly insulting and unacceptable,” considering the two countries’ long history of military co-operation.
“The fact that the president has moved forward with these tariffs is not just going to hurt Canadian jobs. It’s going to hurt U.S. jobs as well, and neither of those things is something that Canada wants to see,” Trudeau said.
In the reports from the U.S. Department of Commerce on the steel and aluminum national security investigations, the American concerns have little to do with fears that Canada or Canadian steel directly pose a threat. Instead, they argue, the increase in foreign imports has shut down U.S. steel and aluminum plants, leaving the U.S. industry at risk of becoming unsustainable.
If the U.S. cannot produce enough steel or aluminum to meet basic national defence requirements, the reports suggest, it is a national security threat.
The documents also discuss the impact on national security from economic threats and unemployment.
They cite a 35 per cent drop in steel industry jobs in America over the last 20 years as foreign steel displaced U.S. production and a 58 per cent drop in aluminum production jobs between 2013 and 2016.